Kong: Skull Island and the Loss of Myth

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Gareth Edwards's Godzilla was something of a revelation for me. I left that Chicago theater back in 2014 having witnessed a kind of renaissance of the monster myth on the big screen. Somehow, Edwards had taken an icon of film lore and imbued that familiar character with an ancient, unknowable dimension that worked to draw viewers "further up and further in" to the world of myth. Three years later, in 2017, I was sitting alone in another theater on the other side of the country in Dallas, and witnessed another movie icon undergo the same treatment.

I walked away from Kong: Skull Island knowing that Edwards's Godzilla wasn't a fluke. Instead, it became very clear that what Legendary Entertainment seeks to do with these movies is to tell the preeminent monster myth of our time. Standing in the tradition of the great mythic stories like Paradise Lost, Frankenstein, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and dealing with themes of forbidden knowledge and the loss of myth, these films have much more in mind than big-budget carnage and monster smackdowns. Instead, what this interconnected film series does is bring cosmic forces to bear on a world that man has done his very best to ruin in his pursuit of forbidden knowledge.

Kong: Skull Island opens with a shot of the blazing sun, a recurring motif in the film. In the film's commentary, director Jordan Vogt-Roberts states that this opening shot is done with the specific purpose of establishing myth. As we stare at the fireball, a lone silhouette comes spiraling out of the blinding light, a WWII pilot plummeting toward earth—a nod to the myth of Icarus and another recurring motif. As the 1973 expedition formed by Bill Randa (John Goodman) plunges into a violent storm onboard helicopters in attempt to reach the unmapped "Skull Island," earth's very own final frontier, Lt. Col. Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) reassures the passengers, "Remember the tale of Icarus, whose father gave him wax wings to fly. But he flew too close to the sun, and his wings melted, and he fell into the sea. But our wings are not made of wax, but of Pennsylvania steel, guaranteed not to melt!" Packard's words are hugely ironic, as he misses the point of the Icarus tale: that man's hubris is his own undoing.

This is a lesson as old as time itself. The tree in Eden of which man was commanded not to eat was of the knowledge of good and evil. In the creation, man was made good, with the prerogative toward a good God and His value system. But the moment man sought to attain that which he considered to be "pleasing to the eye" and "desirable to make one wise," he reached beyond his grasp and stumbled over into sin. And, like echoes from Eden, this theme has resounded through the ages in our mythic storytelling. Man's greatest adversary has always been himself and his unwieldy, sin-ravaged spirit. In Kong, Packard is convinced that the triumphs of technology and modernity have moved man beyond those old stories. He all but says, "We are not like Icarus, we are better." And the helicopters made of "Pennsylvania steel" do indeed pass through the storm, and continue on to the uncharted island unscathed—right up until the moment a tree spears one of them from the sky.

And in a moment of horror intermingled with wonder, the proud humans look for the first time upon the awesome sight of Kong, a hulking mountain of a figure emblazoned against the light of the sun—the point being that Kong is a monster straight out of myth, a symbol of the great unknown that is bigger than both man and his machinations. And suddenly Packard is eating his words. That Pennsylvania steel might have gotten them through the storm, but it isn't much use against a monster that can—and does—swat them from the sky like flies.

Interestingly, in an interview with the popular entertainment industry news source Den of Geek, Vogt-Roberts was asked whether he saw movie monsters like Kong and Godzilla carrying on the tradition of the ancient Greek myths. He responded, "I think we live in a time in which people have lost myth in their lives because you can go on Google and google anything and find the answer to something. As opposed to wonder. As opposed to being okay with not knowing. I think that a big part of this movie for me was about confronting people with myth, reminding them myth exists and what happens when you are put in the presence of myth. What does it do to you?" What's important here is how he links myth with this notion of wonder.

In his brilliant piece, "When Our Souls Stand on Tiptoe," the late theologian Mike Yaconelli says: "I would like to suggest that what a pagan culture does first is steal the wonder and mystery from life. A pagan culture methodically takes away risk, danger, spontaneity, intuition, passion, chance, threat, and peril. We become the slaves of predictability, rules, policies, uniformity, and sameness." I can hardly think of a better description of the age in which we live. With the rise of modernity and the philosophy of the "self-made man," whose ultimate goal is something of a quiet life lived happily with his loving wife, two children, and a dog in the yard, all hemmed in by a white picket fence that separates them from the neighbor next door who lives more or less the exact same life, Christians have found subtle ways to erode the risks that come with living an authentic life of faith. We suddenly never have to talk to our neighbors about the gospel of Christ, because it becomes an inconvenience, a disruption to the routine that is so clearly the hallmark of the life well-lived. As our children grow, we tell them to put aside those old storybooks in favor of participation and conformity—because those old storybooks won't pay one's way through college, which is an absolute necessity if one hopes to have enough money to live a comfortable life devoid of suffering—a life which looks a lot like having a loving spouse, two or three kids, maybe a dog in the yard, all hemmed in by a white picket fence separating them from the neighbor next door...the cycle repeats itself.

If Yaconelli's diagnosis of the current cultural climate is accurate—and I believe it is—then stories like Kong: Skull Island aren't just temporary distractions from the "grind of life." These stories are, in fact, doing the hard work of replanting that sense of wonder in a culture that is unashamedly pagan. Director Vogt-Roberts explicitly states that the purpose of Kong: Skull Island is to confront a modern culture consumed by technological innovation with myth all over again. And it was the great conviction of C. S. Lewis that the story of Christianity, the story of the God who comes to earth in the form of a man, dies and resurrects so as to assure those whose faith is found in Him that they, too, will be raised up at the end of all things, works on us in the same way that those mythic stories do—with the key exception being that it really happened. Imagine, for instance, if I were to tell you that Kong: Skull Island is a story that actually happened. That there was a lonely, morose ape-like creature lording over a forgotten island discovered by an expedition in the 1970s. If you believed it, your paradigm would shift. Your world would come undone. Everything you thought you knew about reality and what was possible would be smashed to pieces, and you would be forced to re-contextualize everything you understood to have meaning in life. This is the power that Christianity wields. And though we try our hardest to reduce wonder to the ones and zeroes of binary, every so often a story comes along that works in the same way those old stories of myths and legends used to. Stories that jumpstart the imagination, that spark a sense of wonder and rekindle the fire that leads us to search for worlds unknown. That catch us up in a sweeping story because, when we just get right down to it, we all intuit on some fundamental level that there is something greater than what man can dream up out there just beyond the horizon, on the other side of the gray rain curtain that is the edge of our dimension, that secret place to which all of our longings point us.

Because, the truth is, there is something strange and mysterious lingering out there in a dimension just a little higher than our own. And there is something familiar about that strange and mysterious thing—familiar because it wears the face of a man, a man who has already been here. All our lives are lived in the wake of his first coming, and the seismic shift that occurred in the world when that man was put to death for bringing the power of that strange and mysterious dimension into our own. But the image of that dead man haunts us because the dead man is no longer dead. Because the dead man came back to life and, with a word of promise, returned to that strange and mysterious place to let the clock continue to run in our dimension, letting the hands turn so that you and I would be born, and in our own ways come to be haunted by this strange man of history.

Haunted by his word of promise: that things aren't always going to be this way, that the pain and suffering we experience in the here and now has a purpose—and that purpose points to why we need him to come back. Why we need that strange and mysterious dimension of reality to become one with our own—a dimension in which death itself begins to work backwards, a dimension in which myth becomes fact, where a sense of wonder is normative, where all of this is possible because that strange man is not merely a man, but a cosmic man, a God-man, whose final act is to pull all of reality together into himself to banish doubt, to judge evil, and to rescue those whose spirits rage against the predictability, the rules, the policies, the uniformity, and the sameness of a world in which Jesus Christ is nothing more than another myth to be scrubbed out by man's hubris.

This is the power of mythic storytelling at its finest. This is the power of Kong: Skull Island. We watch this big ol' monkey smashing the little helicopters out of the sky knowing that what we're watching isn't really about a monkey smashing helicopters. It's about man, who thought he could wipe out the world of myth. It's about the power of a cosmic, mythic being judging man's hubris. We watch these movies knowing that characters like Kong, like Godzilla, aren't just oversized monkeys and lizards, but are actually symbols. Symbols of something strange and mysterious. And the moral of their stories is that when the strange and mysterious comes breaking into our dimension of reality, everything we know is undone. The paradigm shifts. Our knees knock together at the thought of it.

And when we come to see that strange and mysterious thing looks more and more like the cosmic man upon whom the universe waits, we fall on our faces.

Metaphor and the Nature of Meaning in Lewisian Thought

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963)

The power of metaphor can hardly be overstated. Former editor of Time magazine's Europe office, James Geary, suggests that metaphor "is not just confined to art and literature but is at work in all fields of human endeavor, from economics and advertising, to politics and business, to science and psychology."¹ This notion attracted C. S. Lewis, and is one that he dealt with frequently throughout his work. In Miracles, Lewis writes, "The truth is that if we are going to talk at all about things which are not perceived by the senses, we are forced to use language metaphorically. Books on psychology or economics or politics are as continuously metaphorical as books of poetry or devotion."² If Geary's premise is to be taken as true, that metaphor is at work in all fields of human endeavor, then, as Lewis demonstrates, metaphor is most certainly at work in the realm of theology. In fact, if this assumption is presupposed, then the implications for the bearing of metaphor on theological reflection are vast and extremely important.

Metaphor and the Organ of Meaning

Lewis understood the surprising and terribly efficient power that metaphor could wield. In his little-known essay in critical theory, "Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare," Lewis extrapolates on the importance of metaphor to man's ability to ascribe meaning. This essay is the logical starting point for dealing with the role of metaphor in Lewisian thought in particular, for in it he posits in plain language a contrast seen clearly throughout the corpus of his work. "I am a rationalist," he writes. "For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old, is not the cause of truth, but its condition."³ Here, Lewis demonstrates the stark difference between thinking (perhaps reasoning works better) and imagining; in other words, Lewis differentiates between ideas and images.

The relationship between metaphor and imagination is nuanced, but the subtle points are critical in understanding how Lewis will develop metaphor in his works. Insofar as Lewis identifies the imagination as the "organ of meaning," he will attempt to demonstrate that the ability of the imagination to actually ascribe meaning—the ability to connect images (or, symbols) to ideas—lays the groundwork for reasoning of any sort. He writes,

When we pass beyond pointing to individual sensible objects, when we begin to think of causes, relations, of mental states or acts, we become incurably metaphorical. We apprehend none of these things except through metaphor … Our only choice is to use the metaphors and thus to think something, though less than we could wish; or else to be driven by unrecognized metaphors and so think nothing at all.

Such recognition leads Lewis to conclude that, "all our truth, or all but a few fragments, is won by metaphor."⁴ In a very practical sense, what Lewis speaks of is the ability of the imagination to connect images that are not necessarily to be taken as literally true to nevertheless convey ideas that are as true as truth can be. Thus, for Lewis, the discussion of metaphor is a discussion concerning meaning. In some ways, in many ways, metaphor takes one into truth in ways that literalities—not because they are untrue, but because they are literal—cannot, precisely because of meaning (given that the metaphor is an apt one).

The true metaphor, then, might be accurate without being necessarily literal. The accurate metaphor succeeds in capturing truth which, when further abstracted by reason, loses some of its clarity. In everyday conversation, one might be heard saying, "Don't carry this metaphor too far, it will eventually break down." This seems to be the very point Lewis is making. While metaphors might certainly break down when abstracted further into reason, Lewis is simply highlighting that the metaphor not further abstracted might nonetheless contain a very profound truth. In fact, Lewis suggests, it is very likely that all truth might be won through accurate metaphors not abstracted by reliance on reason alone. Rather, good reasoning accounts for the truth of the meaning contained within the accurate metaphor. For Lewis, many of the ways human beings come to understand God is through metaphor.

This is an approach that is favored quite heavily by the writers of Scripture to communicate truth. There are several metaphors in Scripture that are decently well known. Christ's famous "I am" statements from the gospel of John are rife with metaphorical language. The Psalms contain a number of metaphors, notably to compare God to a fortress, or a rock.⁵ To clarify literal terms, it is understood that Jesus Christ is not himself an actual loaf of bread, or that God himself is not a divine Stonehenge. But what these instances from Scripture demonstrate is the point Lewis makes—the ability of metaphor to stoke the imagination, to paint in stronger colors and define with crystalline clarity a truth that might otherwise be won with a lesser degree of potency.

Metaphor as the Language of Meaning

Thus it might be said that, for Lewis, metaphor is the language of meaning. "We can make our language duller," Lewis states in an essay presented to the Socratic Club on November 6, 1944, "[but] we cannot make it less metaphorical. We can make the pictures more prosaic; we cannot be less pictorial … In other words, all language about things other than physical objects is necessarily metaphorical."⁶ Viewing metaphor as the language of meaning becomes a necessary component for understanding not only the nature of meaning of Lewis's works, but also for understanding Lewis's own epistemology.

It is important to understand that Lewis does not attempt to favor imagination over intellect, or vice versa. Rather, both are incredibly important, necessitating that that they be viewed correctly. As already mentioned, Lewis developed the idea that the imagination must be dealt with first, because it is the mechanism through which the meaning of something is grasped. Therefore, when it comes to probing the Divine, if the words of Paul to the Corinthian church are to be taken with all the gravity in which they were intended, then for those who now "see in a mirror dimly," metaphor is imperative for grasping that which is both unfamiliar and remote. No more is this readily apparent than in one's attempt to understand the supernatural. And, as Lewis demonstrates at multiple points across his literary works, to accurately grasp the supernatural is to push one “further up and further in” to meaning itself.

Meaning and The Chronicles of Narnia

Though somewhat counterintuitive, perhaps the best place to begin when examining the treatment of meaning in The Chronicles of Narnia comes at the very end of the series. At the close of The Last Battle, the final book in the series, Aslan says to the humans, "There was a real railway accident … Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended; this is the morning."⁷ For the reader who has tracked the story through the entire series, there is a startling recognition here: what Lewis, through Aslan, identifies as "the Shadowlands" is, in actuality, the "real" world from which the main characters come. The point Lewis is making is that the current reality in which we inhabit is a mere "shadow" of the world to come. In a sense, this world is a metaphor in and of itself for the world to come.

Now, this notion of metaphor is not fully realized until the recreation of Narnia itself is taken into account. After Aslan has set about recreating the world of Narnia, Lewis takes a moment to contrast the old with the new: "The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more."⁸ It is the curious usage of the word "meant" here that becomes crucial for understanding how Lewis has developed his notion of metaphor throughout this series. As the new Narnia comes into being, meaning itself becomes more actualized. Truth, it would seem, for Lewis, is merely a statement that corresponds to reality. But meaning is what determines the initial statement. This corresponds to Lewis's notion that imagination—the ability to ascribe meaning—is the condition of truth. To extrapolate just a bit further, the point Lewis is making about this present reality is that, at some future point in time, when heaven and earth are reconciled, it is almost as if fact is transformed into meaning.

Meaning and The Space Trilogy

This same notion is captured in a singular instance in the final book of Lewis's science fiction series, That Hideous Strength. While the first two books draw up the mythos that is to define the series, this book gradually redefines the mythos before detailing the resolution. Famously panned by Lewis's friend J. R. R. Tolkien for its reliance on their mutual friend Charles Williams and his writings, That Hideous Strength is something of a curious conclusion to the series. Yet the book also provides a startling insight into how Lewis handled meaning in his works, in many ways a better example than in his more popular Narnia stories.

Up to this point, the central character of the first two books, Elwin Ransom, has ventured to Mars and Venus, where he has learned the story of man's oppression at the hands of dark spiritual forces. In That Hideous Strength, the plot of which unfurls on planet Earth, the reawakened Merlin of Arthurian lore becomes the vector through which angelic, heavenly beings will aid man in overcoming the dark forces oppressing them in the form of a government agency tastefully (or distastefully, depending on the reader) acronymed N. I. C. E. The utter outlandishness of the plot aside, the moment the angelic being named Mercury descends on Merlin, Lewis writes,

For Ransom, whose study had been for many years in the realm of words, it was heavenly pleasure. He found himself sitting within the very heart of language, in the white-hot furnace of essential speech. All fact was broken, splashed into cataracts, caught, turned inside out, kneaded, slain, and reborn as meaning.

Again, fact becomes meaning.⁹ The recurring point of Lewis’s work, present in The Last Battle and here again in That Hideous Strength, is the notion that, when confronted with the Divine, the seemingly benign things of this present reality begin to mean more. Meaning becomes a key element of supernatural manifestation, and the impression one gets when reading Lewis is that dealing with meaning in such a way presses one deeper into truth.

Myth, Metaphor, and Meaning

As already pointed out, in Lewisian thought, statements that are true are simply meanings concerning reality abstracted from reality. In other words, truth statements are those statements that simply correspond to reality. But there is another type of meaning, what might be termed a "deeper" meaning, which is reached through myth. Such meaning is not necessarily reached through language. In fact, all of language could fade away and the core mythic qualities still communicate—accurately—the intended meaning.

Nowhere is Lewis’s understanding of metaphor and its relation to the nature of meaning more apparent than in his understanding of myth. In his essay "Myth Became Fact," Lewis points out that the "intellect is incurably abstract," and draws a hardline between experience and intellectually apprehending that experience. "You cannot study Pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting." Yet in "the enjoyment of a great myth we come nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction."¹⁰ What Lewis suggests is that myth is the thing that draws one closer to truth and pulls one deeper into reality. This forms the basis of accepting Christianity as the "true myth."

The point of connection between myth, metaphor, and meaning in Lewisian thought is summed up nicely by Peter W. Macky in his 1981 essay "The Role of Metaphor in Christian Thought and Experience as Understood by Gordon Clark and C. S. Lewis." In this essay, he traces Lewis’s development of metaphor to conclude that there is a spectrum of language through which truth can be accessed. "Metaphor," he writes, "is most at home in the poetic type (including religious speech), for that is the way to speak of supersensible human experiences." This is precisely the function Lewis ascribed to metaphor, the ability to make clear a supernatural reality. "It is best done by appealing to the imagination, using metaphors that enable us to taste reality rather than just talk about it."¹¹ And this notion of "tasting reality" rather than just talking about it is the key component of myth. Myth is capable of "speaking" without necessarily abstracting. To ascribe meaning to myth is to do so intuitively, rather than analytically, thus requiring the power of imagination.

In myth, the analytical abstractions from reality about reality must necessarily give way to something that can be experienced as concrete in myth itself; that is to say, a mythic "truth" is not one that corresponds to reality, but is, in fact, reality itself. Myth, like the new Narnia, purely means. And this realization, like the realization of Ransom in That Hideous Strength, enables one to experience truth in a way that goes beyond merely talking about it, while at the same time communicating truth in new and profound ways.

The Aliens are Not Coming: The X-Files and Modern Mythopoeia

The X-Files title card

In 1993, the Fox Network was the new kid on the block when it came to primetime television. Pitted against juggernauts ABC, CBS, and NBC, Fox executives looked to the quirky Bruce Campbell vehicle, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., to put the fledgling network on the ratings map. Brisco, as the show was informally known, debuted on Friday, August 27, 1993, to positive critical reception, and was fully expected to become the season’s breakout hit. Those expectations were short lived. Exactly two weeks later, on September 10, Fox aired the Pilot episode of its second new show of the season: a murky, paranoia-laced, science fiction-thriller that executives originally projected would be nothing more than a cult curiosity.¹ Created by Chris Carter, a surfer and former magazine editor raised in the sweltering heat of Southern California, The X-Files would go on to become a cult hit before achieving mainstream success, eventually growing into a pop culture phenomenon.

While words like “zeitgeist” and “popular fears” have traditionally been used by critics to describe the part of the public perception that the show managed to capture to warrant its unexpected success, a closer examination of the show’s ingredients yields a startling realization: the key to the success of The X-Files lies in the power of mythic storytelling. C. S. Lewis famously attributed to Christianity the status of “true myth.” Presupposing the truth of the biblical texts, Lewis found that stepping from history into the realm of myth brought the true nature of Christ’s power to transform lives into surprising clarity, and from this assumption argued in favor of the nourishing component of myth reading and myth-making. Indeed, for Lewis, the capacity of the human spirit to experience the transcendent quality of the power of myth was a necessary component of the sanctification process, as mythic storytelling has the distinct quality of drawing one “further up” and “further in.”²

Countless essays have been written exploring the various ways in which Carter’s series matchlessly tapped the pulsing vein of a prominent subculture that was present in America at the end of the 20th century. And to be sure, The X-Files did manage to capture lightning in a bottle as far as successfully excavating the cultural zeitgeist of the day, preying on the fears of the modern world to generate taut chillers on a weekly basis. But the show’s power to captivate its audience goes beyond a few well-executed psychological sleights of hand, playing viewers against themselves; rather, Carter’s genius was in his decision to build the show upon mythological conceits. This allowed The X-Files a measure of flexibility in the types of stories told week-to-week, which, in turn, became the key element in the show’s longevity, as there was “something for everyone” to enjoy. For example, one episode could primarily deal with classic gothic horror tropes reskinned to fit a quirky Americana setting (TXF: “Shapes”; “Red Museum”), while another could spend the hour exploring themes ripped from traditional science fiction stories (TXF: “Conduit”; “Soft Light”). Nevertheless, the show held together despite stylistic and tonal changes because of a key mythological construct: the central relationship that viewers were asked to invest themselves in was built upon two character archetypes: the believer, and the skeptic. But what sets The X-Files apart from other mythological works of the 20th century (The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc.) is that these two archetypes are constructed in a way that is unique to postsecular modernity.³

Modern Archetypes

Mythologically speaking, archetypes are simply recurring or timeless examples of similar thematic arcs appearing in different “mythic” stories down through the ages. Applying this same principle of recurring arcs to characterization yields what can be termed the character archetype; that is, recurring motifs or character arcs that play out in similar fashion across all different types of stories throughout history. Carl Jung would go on to postulate that, “In addition to our immediate consciousness … there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited.”⁴ In other words, Jung takes the concept of the archetype and applies it psychologically. This is key to understanding how Chris Carter approaches the creation of his two protagonists in The X-Files, as what the characters eventually become is a kind of blend between the traditional mythological and modern psychological archetypes. This not only places The X-Files at a pivotal moment in history, when secularism was crumbling beneath the weight of an upsurge in religious enthusiasm, but also primes the series to become the very important work of art that it is, a work with true literary aspirations, weaving a careful thematic narrative worthy of standing alongside the greatest of mythological works coming out of the 20th century.

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) is an Oxford-educated Special Agent with the FBI, with a background in psychology. Though an undeniably brilliant analyst originally with the Violent Crimes Section, unconventional investigative methods stemming from a dogged belief in the regular occurrence of supernatural phenomena led to his being dubbed “Spooky” Mulder by his peers. Lambasted by both co-workers and superiors for his wonky theories, Mulder’s determination led to his uncovering the so-called X-files, cases deemed by the FBI to be unsolvable, as well as his eventual assignment to the X-files unit, a project outside of the Bureau mainstream concerned with investigating the unexplained phenomena found within the case files. His obsessive tendencies led to Division Chief Scott Blevins (Charles Cioffi) assigning another agent to the X-files unit to assess the validity of Mulder’s work. Special Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), a medical doctor with a background in hard science, brought an analytical edge to the investigations that contrasted with Mulder’s convictions toward supernatural explanations. Her assignment to the X-files unit is where the series begins (TXF: “Pilot”). Together, Mulder and Scully worked to uncover the ever-elusive “truth” behind a wide-range of mysterious occurrences all over the globe in a nine season run of the original series (1993-2002), two feature films (1998; 2008), and a revival series (2016; 2018). As characters, Mulder and Scully are archetypes representative of two distinct points of view: the believer and the skeptic, respectively. In pairing these two agents, The X-Files is more than another mere procedural involving strange cases, and Mulder and Scully are more than just another male-female dynamic duo; instead, the series is about how two perspectives (what might be termed “worldviews”) cooperate and collide in intense and interesting ways when attempting to make sense of reality.

The Believer

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny)

In the context of the series, Mulder’s obsession with the paranormal began with the abduction of his sister, Samantha, from their home on Martha’s Vineyard in 1973 (TXF: “Pilot”; “Little Green Men”). Convinced that the beings responsible for Samantha’s abduction were extraterrestrial, Mulder began a life-long quest to expose the truth surrounding the existence of alien life; an existence that he believed, should it be uncovered and proven, had the power to “change everything,” and would shake every truth humans lived by “to the ground” (TXF: “Gethsemane”). Mulder’s quest formed the backbone of the original series for the first seven seasons, and provided an emotional center around which the story could orbit.

The mythological connections here are not to be missed. In one sense, Mulder is uniquely positioned to embody the archetype of the seeker, one who quests for truth by uncovering mysteries and deceptions. In another sense altogether, Mulder’s quest bears some resemblance to the traditional Campbellian “hero’s journey,” featuring the heroic figure who sets out on an adventure that brings the hero from the “common day into a region of supernatural wonder” and into a crisis out of which the hero emerges victorious and transformed.⁵ The object of this journey (Samantha) is akin to the damsels of old, the “princess in the tower” who must be rescued by the chivalrous knight-errant only by defeating a monster, usually envisioned as a dragon (in this case of The X-Files: aliens).

Mulder’s characterization lends itself to this traditional heroic figure archetype to be sure, but with a certain twist—he is chivalrous and heroic, but he is emotionally unavailable, especially to the women in his life.⁶ This psychological aspect of Mulder’s characterization serves to deepen his development as the series progresses, and is one of the first ways in which The X-Files works to subvert common storytelling tropes without working to demythologize traditionally mythic themes. Mulder is indeed heroic, but not in the “traditional” sense. Duchovny imbues the character with a clear sense of loneliness, but plays the role with a certain boyish charm that suggests Mulder is every bit a heroic character, but one who is not fully formed in his masculinity. He is easily excitable, at times prone to a cynical and immature sense of humor, and often wears his emotions on his sleeve (TXF: “End Game”; “Redux II”). He is aloof, sleeps on his couch, and is prone to violent outbursts in moments of grief (TXF: “Pilot”; “Dreamland”; “Redux II”). In this respect, Mulder is very much a character forged in the fires of the modern era, a kind of modern man who represents, in Scully’s own words, “Men with Spartan lives, simple in their creature comforts, if only to allow for the complexity of their passions” (TXF: “Max”).

The point here is to realize that, in the moral universe established by Chris Carter in The X-Files, characters are defined less by the quests upon which they embark (because tropes are so frequently subverted) than they are the perspectives they represent. In this way, Carter seems not so much interested in the continuity of the quest as he is in exploring how a particular perspective or worldview as embodied by a specific character reacts to startling new revelations about reality, or “truth.” It is almost as if Carter wants to push the limits of belief systems to their breaking point, and ponder how well these perspectives hold up in the asking of “what ifs.” As far as Mulder is concerned, he is not so much a traditional hero as he is a kind of seeker with an eye to the past. He heralds the legends and romanticisms of old in the face of a society all too eager to deem such things trivial and out of date, a society primed by scientific and technological advancement to leave behind the things of old and march ever forward all in the good name of progress. In this respect, Mulder is a seeker caught in the modern world, and therefore embodies a new archetype that incorporates strands of both the traditional hero and the Jungian seeker—a believer.

The Skeptic

Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson)

Standing in stark contrast to the believer, is the skeptic, embodied by Dana Scully. Initially presented as something of a cipher, Scully squares the circle of reversing traditional gender roles by acting as the calculating, cerebral scientist who ensures the show keeps one foot in the realm of scientific plausibility most of the time, whereas Mulder is generally the more emotional turbulent. In some ways, Scully’s characterization as a strong, unflinching personality lends her some traits of the traditional hero; her masculine presence, in many ways, being more formed than Mulder’s. To further tease a connection, it is also worth noting that Scully is written as being more vulnerable than Mulder as well, as demonstrated by a scene in the show's "Pilot" episode, in which Scully, fearing that she has acquired strange markings linked to the case they are working, disrobes before Mulder, whom she has only recently met, and allows him to inspect the marks. Anderson carries the scene with an appropriate amount of urgency to communicate Scully’s vulnerability, but takes care to highlight the absence of self-consciousness in the act, which demonstrates a kind of confidence that Mulder is lacking. In fact, a similar situation would befall Mulder just a few episodes later, requiring him to unclothe as well, an act that he cannot carry out without cracking an obligatory joke (TXF: “Ice”).

As a medical doctor cum FBI Special Agent, Scully might also be viewed as a kind of seeker in her own right, albeit one who quests in the name of science and reason. But neither this archetype, nor the aforementioned heroic archetype, presents an entirely accurate description of the true perspective that Dana Scully embodies. Again, in Carter’s universe, perspective defines the mythological underpinnings. Relying on science and the technology to carry out her quest, Scully’s perspective is one that sees the world through a decidedly rational lens, a perspective that suggests “nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it,” one that places faith in the ability of science to explain the unexplainable, even if the exact scientific understanding has not yet been reached by the observer of the thing unexplained (TXF: “Herrenvolk”; “Teliko”). The skeptic, as embodied by Dana Scully, is an archetype that could only have been forged in the fires of the modern era, an era marked by scientific and technological advancements made in leaps and bounds.

Yet to characterize this archetype as a product of secular modernity is a misnomer, though this seems to be the predominant view concerning her character. While Scully is certainly skeptical, she is not irreligious. In fact, the most interesting facet of her character has to do with her commitment to Catholicism. At first glance, to have a character whose general disposition is one of skepticism also embody a deep-set conviction toward religion seems at odds with modernity—but only if modernity is understood as secular. Again, the genius of Chris Carter was to anticipate the direction of modernity in the 1990s, an era that might usually be characterized as “postmodern.” In the character of Scully, Carter seems to be anticipating what philosophers of the modern era were also coming to realize (and some would mislabel as “postmodern”): that secularism (not modernity itself) was short-lived, that religion could not be cut out of everyday life, that the convictions by which every human lived were done so with a kind of religious devotion. It was the realization that “in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships.”⁷

This compelling struggle between believer and skeptic formed the central conflict of the show. A conflict demonstrated between the two perspectives embodied and given voice by two character archetypes, and in a way the central conflict within the characters of both Scully and Mulder themselves: science against religion, reason against faith.

Religion and Myth in The X-Files

When The X-Files first aired, the world was moving beyond secularism, though the skepticism inherent to secular modernity remained, even as religion came flooding back into the public sphere. This philosophical and theological quagmire is precisely what Chris Carter sought to navigate through the archetypes of believer and skeptic. Mulder and Scully were both created as the agnostic believer and the skeptical Catholic, respectively, with the specific purpose of navigating the murky waters of postsecular modernity. What began as Mulder’s quest for “little green aliens” (TXF: “Redux II”) eventually expanded to encompass Scully’s own quest for a higher power (TXF: “Nothing Lasts Forever”), and by the show’s seventh season the two quests had quite literally become one (TXF: “Biogenesis”; “The Sixth Extinction”; “The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati”). The show’s well-known tagline, the truth is out there, serves to reinforce the notion that Chris Carter has always had a strong theological streak in his creative endeavors, one that is strikingly prominent in the overarching narrative of The X-Files. In an interview given to the prestigious magazine Innovation & Tech Today, Carter said, regarding religion and its place in the show, “It’s everything; it is the beating heart of The X-Files. I would say The X-Files is a search for God.”⁸

It is precisely because of these religious themes embodied by Mulder and Scully’s search (what, in mythological terms, might be better understood as “quests”) for “the truth,” that The X-Files transcends stereotypical genre conventions to become a work of profound literary quality. And the narrative spun by Carter and a consistent team of writers is nothing short of a mythological tale concerning themes of apocalyptic vision, forbidden knowledge, and, ultimately, redemption.

Chasing Monsters in the Dark: The Myth-Arc of The X-Files

Beyond its memorable characters, if there is one thing The X-Files is known for, it is the show’s fascinating and, at times, controversial “myth-arc.” When the show first aired, it did so in a time when the procedural format (self contained, case-of-the-week stories) reigned supreme. Carter and his team of writers began shaking up the system as early as the premiere episode, dropping subtle hints across a variety of cases that a larger conspiracy was at play in the world in which Mulder and Scully inhabited, a conspiracy involving the highest echelons of governmental authority potentially concealing knowledge of alien life from the public. This conspiracy would be blown open in the first season finale, “The Erlenmeyer Flask,” an episode rife with mythological connections, and could also have been aptly titled “Pandora’s Box.”

From this point forward, the show beckoned viewers to settle in for the long haul as Mulder and Scully investigated X-files week-to-week. Viewers—like the characters—never knew when a random case involving a strange phenomenon would take a hard right turn and lead them right back to investigating the conspiracy. The shows that followed the case-of-the-week structure became known as “monster-of-the-week” episodes (referring to the frequently bizarre characters and creations that the agents usually encountered), while the episodes concerning the government conspiracy, aliens, and the agents’ personal lives were identified as “mythology” episodes, which, when taken together, constitute the series' overarching narrative, the “myth-arc.” While the monster-of-the-week episodes certainly contain their share of mythological themes, for the purposes of this essay, only the myth-arc will be examined, for it constitutes the overall narrative force of The X-Files, driving the story forward and regularly examining the three important themes already mentioned.

Apocalyptic Vision

Some of the most compelling parts of the myth-arc deal in the realization of a coming apocalypse, referenced as early as the third season (TXF: “Paper Clip”). A modern day Ragnarök or Tribulation period, the anticipated apocalypse is said to coincide with the moment a vindictive force of alien Colonists chooses to carry out a dark plan to colonize the entire planet using a deadly “black oil” pathogen—their own toxic life force—that will eventually turn all those it infects into hosts, inside of whom a new Colonist life form would gestate (The X-Files: Fight the Future). A cabal of powerful men known only as the Syndicate conspires with the Colonists in an attempt to preserve their own lives during the colonization event, the Vichy government to the Colonists’ Nazi Germany (TXF: “One Son”). This conspiracy lies at the heart of Mulder and Scully’s quest, and their investigations see them slowly peeling away layer after layer of obfuscation to finally reveal the truth: that the date of colonization was set long before the conspiracy began; that the Colonists had actually made contact with early civilizations; that the Mayans had foreseen the colonization event coming to pass on December 22, 2012, and chose to end their calendar on the day that humanity is to end; the ultimate revelation being, though, that the coming invasion cannot not be stopped, only survived (TXF: “The Truth”).

The Syndicate meets its end in "One Son"

But, the Syndicate’s plans fail, and they are destroyed (TXF: “One Son”). The projected date of the alien invasion comes and goes, and colonization never occurs. This primes the revival series for the show’s greatest subversion yet: “the aliens are not coming.” Instead, a splinter group of former Syndicate members, having survived the consortium’s destruction, secretly working for years to reverse-engineer technology that had been stolen from benevolent aliens—aliens that originally came to help prevent man’s destruction by his own hand—now seeks to use that same technology to actually colonize space (TXF: “My Struggle III”). The story of colonization then, is not one of aliens colonizing man, but of man colonizing them. This bombshell revelation undoes twenty-five years worth of surmounting expectations to make a profound point: the true monster of The X-Files is none other than mankind itself, represented by a cabal of powerful elites (who might be looked at mythologically as corrupt “kings”), so consumed by the notion of self-preservation that even a truth as weighty as life on other planets cannot shake the foundations of their hubris. This reversal brings Mulder and Scully up against an overwhelming force against which there appears to be very little hope: the dark imaginings of the depraved human heart.

Forbidden Knowledge

The theme of forbidden knowledge is a motif present in a number of mythological accounts. In the true myth of Christianity, in Eden, Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent to eat of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2-3). In Greek mythology, the demigod Prometheus steals from Zeus the secret of fire to deliver to man that they might not go extinct. In Shelley’s Frankenstein, it is the very secret of life that Victor Frankenstein bestows upon his monstrous creation.⁹ And in all three situations, the results are catastrophic: Adam and Eve plunge the world into sin and separation from God, Zeus unleashes Pandora, who in turn unleashes her “box,” and Frankenstein’s monster goes on a murdering spree. The warning in these stories is clear: there are things we ought not know.

This theme is stunningly recapitulated in the myth-arc of The X-Files, an astounding storytelling choice considering the centrality of science and technology to the Scully character, and therefore the very DNA of the show. But this acts as a powerful warning against the breathtaking scientific achievements and technological advancements of secular modernity, which sought to eradicate such petty things as religious conviction in favor of “enlightenment.”

The Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) in "My Struggle"

Mulder and Scully’s quest for the truth inevitably brings them into contact with a devious man identified only by the Morley brand cigarettes he frequently smokes. A shadowy presence in "Pilot," the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), or “the CSM,” as he came to be known among fans, would go on to dog the agents across the entire run of the series as the enforcer of the Syndicate. Like the silver-tongued serpent in Eden, he tempts both Mulder and Scully at different points, urging them to give up their quest for the truth (TXF: “Redux II”; “En Ami”). The mythological connection here is even more pronounced upon the realization that Carter himself identified the character as, basically, “the Devil” incarnate, a metaphorical connection made in the context of the series itself (TXF: “Memento Mori”).¹⁰

Interestingly, the CSM harkens unto the tempter, Prometheus, and Dr. Frankenstein all in one. The central antagonist of the series, he, like Satan himself, is finally a victim of his own hubris. In the show’s complex mythology, the CSM, on behalf of the Syndicate, is responsible for taking advantage of the initially benevolent aliens who venture to Earth, taking and then reverse-engineering their advanced technology for the government, and finally for his own ends, upon the destruction of the Syndicate (TXF: “Two Fathers”; “One Son”; “My Struggle III”). But his actions are not without consequences, and eventually unleash a deadly pathogen in the form of the sentient, extraterrestrial “black oil” virus (TXF: “Piper Maru”; “Apocrypha”). Mythologically, this likens the CSM to Prometheus, who steals forbidden “fire” (advanced technology) from the “gods” (aliens), to give to man, but whose actions finally lead to the opening of “Pandora’s box” (the alien virus), which threatens the very existence of humanity.

During the course of the series, the CSM also takes on the role Dr. Frankenstein. Late in the show, using forbidden (alien) science, he impregnates Scully—who is unable to bear children—with the intention of creating “the first superhuman child” (TXF: “En Ami”; “My Struggle III”). The child, William, is eventually born, but Scully, knowing her child is a kind of miracle (note here the mythological theme of miraculous conception and birth), elects to give him up for adoption (TXF: “Existence”; “William”). The CSM’s pursuit of this child forms the central plot of the revival series, because the child’s hybrid nature lends him a kind of immortality, the blueprint by which the CSM seeks to start creation anew “just in my [his own] image instead of God’s” (TXF: “My Struggle II”). The mythological theme here is laced with irony, as in the story of Frankenstein: the CSM is William’s “creator,” but his creation flees from him. In a desperate bid to retrieve his creation, the CSM relentlessly pursues the boy until William unexpectedly turns the tables on him, forcing the CSM to kill him, and thereby destroying his own creation. William’s sacrifice buys Mulder enough time to finally shoot the CSM to death (TXF: “My Struggle IV”). The theme here is one that rings true mythologically: the narcissistic creator, too curious for his own good, whose reach far exceeds his grasp, is ultimately undone by his own creation.

Redemption

Though apocalyptic vision and forbidden knowledge are two critical themes to the development of the myth-arc, perhaps the most important mythological theme laced into the story is the one that resounds the loudest in Scripture as well: redemption. Mulder and Scully’s quest costs them dearly. Scully loses a sister and a child (TXF: “The Blessing Way”; “William”); Mulder loses his sister, his father, and his mother (TXF: “Anasazi”; “Sein Und Zeit”). Their personal relationship in flux over the years, the two of them finally separate, only to be brought back together in the revival series in pursuit of Scully’s miracle child, William (TXF: “My Struggle”). In the final episode to air, “My Struggle IV,” the show’s classic tagline is changed from “the truth is out there” to “salvator mundi,” the Latin translation of the phrase “savior of the world.”

William (Miles Robbins) in "Ghouli"

The mythological connections drawn here are as close to “the truth” as the show ever gets—directly mirroring the climax of the true myth of Christianity. As the CSM (the tempter) closes in on William (the obvious Christ-figure and “salvator mundi,” given the miraculous circumstances of his birth), Mulder and Scully race against the clock to find and protect the boy. Ultimately, they fail to do so, and he is killed by the CSM. In sacrificing himself to protect Mulder and Scully, William provides Mulder the opportunity to finally overcome his foe, and finally dispatch the CSM. With the CSM dead, his twisted plan to recreate the planet in his own image is ended. The final shot of the series features William, with a gaping bullet wound in his head, rising from the murky waters into which he had plunged upon his supposed demise, very much alive, and, indeed, resurrected. William, the miracle child, rises from the dead having delivered mankind from certain destruction, conquering death in the process. Again, Chris Carter has something of a theological streak.

But redemption is not won so easily, and Carter acknowledges this. Mulder and Scully, believing William to be dead, must come to terms with the fact that they not only failed to protect him, but also must reckon with the revelation that the child they had for so long believed to be their own was actually a genetic experiment. Scully acknowledges that she has not been the mother she has longed to be, and Mulder realizes that the family reunion he had always wanted was not going to come to pass. Both had, in their longings, created fantasies that each had lived toward, only to have those fantasies shatter against reality in the end. And to leave the characters here, in such a vulnerable state, with the future of the show unclear, would have certainly been unsatisfactory. But, in his wisdom, Carter offers his characters a ray of hope: Scully, it turns out, is pregnant. A second miracle child, this one not a product of genetic experimentation but of actual miraculous conception, is on the way, and Mulder is the father. Carter has given his characters the chance to start anew. It does not undermine the struggles they have gone through, having failed as parents, and as a couple. But it gives them the opportunity to try again—in other words, through William’s sacrifice, the enemy is defeated, and redemption is suddenly within reach. The seekers have found their truth.

Conclusion

This is an all too brief look at the world of The X-Files. With 218 episodes of television and two feature films in the franchise, the strange, phantasmagoria universe created by Chris Carter and nourished to maturity by a devoted team of writers stands as an epic of modern myth-making that matters, having produced quality content for over a quarter century. It is little wonder that the stable of young writers Carter assembled for the show would go on to create some of the most acclaimed dramas of the 2000s and 2010s, including 24 (Howard Gordon), Breaking Bad (Vince Gilligan), and The Man in the High Castle (Frank Spotnitz). Rife with symbolism and mythic undertones, it is hardly an overstatement to suggest that The X-Files is a powerful, compelling mythological—at times even literary—work of art, uniquely positioned to lead all those who seek “the truth,” as Mulder and Scully do, through the often dim and dejected world of postsecular modernity. Perhaps the show’s greatest contribution comes in the form of a statement made by Scully in the revival series. Upon discovering the CSM’s plan to use a modified strand of the alien virus to wipe out mankind in “My Struggle II,” she realizes that the only hope of survival, short of conquering the devil, is to fuse all humans with extraterrestrial biology: “Alien DNA is all that can save us,” she proclaims, a strange statement in a culture that continually encourages introspection as the key to personal enlightenment and, indeed, godhood. The X-Files reminds viewers that “the truth is out there,” rather than “in here,” and mythically proclaims that the quest, despite the struggle, is worth it.

                                        

1 Paula Vitaris and Dan Coyle, “X’d Out,” Cinefantastique (April 2002), 34.

2 C. S. Lewis, “Myth Became Fact,” God in the Dock (1970; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 54-60.

3 See Michael McDuffee, “Postsecular Modernity is not Postmodern,” Fruit of His Lips: Releasing Vital Speech Into the World, Wordpress, May 3, 2011, https://mcduffee.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/postsecular-modernity-is-not-postmodern/. It is my opinion that the “postmodern” can not be, because the modern still is. In short, I do not believe that the “modern” era has been left behind, and that the cultural whims of the day are, as have been termed, “post” modern. While this paper does not afford the time to fully explore this notion, it is crucial to my understanding of The X-Files and related materials to recognize that I believe the culture in which we live to operate on postsecular principles, over against “postmodern.” Modernity has not been left behind; on the contrary, the modern era has only just come into her own, having realized that religion is not so easily expunged from the public sphere, though the same skepticism inherent to traditional categorizations of the modern era still exist. The world is thus postsecular, not postmodern.

4 C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 2nd ed., The Collected Works of C. G. Jung vol. 9, pt. 1, trans. R. F. C. Hull, (1969; repr., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 43.

5 Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 3rd ed., The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell vol. 17, (1949; repr., Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008), 23.

6 John Kenneth Muir and Chris Carter, “Interview with Chris Carter,” John Kenneth Muir’s Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic Television, Blogger, Dec. 15, 2009, http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2009/12/interview-with-chris-carter.html.

7 David Foster Wallace. “This is Water” (2005), in This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 2009), 98-100.

8 John Faulkner and Chris Carter, “Inside the Mind of Chris Carter.” Innovation & Tech Today, Feb. 22, 2016, https://innotechtoday.com/inside-the-mind-of-chris-carter/.

9 Roger Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (Boston: Mariner Books, 1997), 14-26.

10 William B. Davis, Where There’s Smoke…: Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (Toronto: ECW Press, 2011), 257-258.